Anti-Russian sanctions due to the Ukrainian crisis of 2014: assessment of consequences and prospects
The subject of this research is the sanctions imposed by Western countries against Russia in response to the Ukrainian events of 2014. Leaning on the available empirical data and expert assessments conducted by various financial and analytical structures, an attempt is made to identify the nature and severity of impact of sanction pressure upon different economic sectors of the Russian Federation, implemented for achieving the foreign policy goals. Emphasis is placed on the absence of uniform sanctions policy due to the specificity of foreign policy goals and peculiarities of sanction mechanisms used by the United States and the European Union. It is underlined that anti-Russian sanctions and Russia’s response in many instances are substantiated by the preceding trends in strategic vision of foreign and domestic policy by the Russian Federation, as well as the nature of its relations with the West. The conclusion is made that the focus in studying the problem of sanctions has shifted towards the political analysis and further analytical and scientific examination. The author believes that in the conditions of uncertainty of the economic effects and absence of common approaches towards understanding the prospects of sanctions policy by the Western countries the two main scenarios of its further development. It would either gradually fade out without “renewed efforts”, slowly negating its practical effect, and prompt the United States and the European Union intensify the dialogue with Russia, avoiding the problematic issues on the status of Crimea, implication in the events in South-Eastern Ukraine, etc.; or it can lead to full “politicization” of sanctions polity and its integration into the negotiation process on settlement of the Ukrainian situation and turning into a powerful tool for conducting negotiations.